Friday, June 12, 2009

When the Cure is worse that the Disease:‘The 1976 Swine-Flu Pandemic’

What is now called Swine-Flu, or derivatives of the influenza C strain, have been identified since mankind developed the science to locate, and classify the infection.

The first major identified Pig-Flu/Swine-Flu/Influenza, outbreak or pandemic, was in 1918, and the last-one was in 1976. Faced with a pandemic in the seventies, authorities in the US choose to vaccinate the population (refer photo).

Now here’s the rub, today’s lesson from history, before you go running to the doctor, or getting your kids jabbed.

The vaccine the U.S Government administered, when immunising almost a third of the population in 1976, produced tragic side-effect in certain individuals.

This was a rare pulmonary sydrome called Guillain-Barré (GBS for short)

Complications from GBS resulted in 25 deaths.

The tally of confirmed deaths from the Swine Flu itself was: one.

The single individual who fell victim to the flu, was the U.S Soldier that sparked the pandemic in the first place!